"You buy clothes manufactured by children in Malaysia and support wars that kill millions of people."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the fundamental problem with America and our acceptance of globalism. Why do we need to introduce democracy to every shithole? We figured it out; they can figure it out too. Fuck the kids in Malaysia and their international conglomerate slavemasters. What happened to making things here? What do we even make here anymore? Airplanes and guns?

America has done some really good shit in the past and we've done some really bad shit too. It's time to refocus our efforts home. It's hard to piss people off if we're not doing anything *to* piss them off.

Why not Invictus? Seriously for a moment here. Are we better than the people who lived in Germany in 1939-1945? If we are because history has taught us something, then why had 10000 years of history before them taught them nothing? Do not make the mistake of perceiving that our current period of peace has been or is everlasting.

If we take humanity as it is now, where there are at least 60% of the world in poverty because of artificial reasons (wealth and inequality) where racial tensions have caused conflict across all continents and where empires have repetitively conquered and controlled large swathes of populations - if we take THAT!, and give it access to transhuman technologies, we are inviting disaster.

"This is a myth Krellin." Fuck you it's a myth that I live a happy, contented life with my family and friends. You may not like everything that goes on in the world, and neither do I, but that doesn't mean I'm not happy, and not a decent person in reality (apart from my vomit on the forumns). I dont' need some asshole telling me how wrong my life is because of YOUR perceptions of the world.

The kids in Malasia working for pennies...yeah, those pennies buy them food, and give them a better life than they would have had otherwise. A penny there isn't a penny here, moron. Is it wrong? I don't know, is it? You can take their pennies-a-day job away and then they'll have nothign. Or you can leave their jobs in place, give people skills and experience, and eventually the economy will grow and the people will prosper in teh long run. Contrary to Libtard desires, you can't change the world, or even a country, overnight. But the building blocks are in place for these places to grow, just as they have in many countries in that region in which low-paid jobs grew the economy such that industry moved on, because it got too expensive to produce goods there. "Made In Hong Kong" was the tag in the shirts when I was a kid....hard to find that now, becuase pennies-a-day grew in to a thriving economy.


"You lynched black people, you committed the Holocaust, you are Ghenghis Khan, "

You are a fucking retard. Seriously.

Just think what a better place the world would be if the self-loathers....Putin, SYnapse, others...just self-actualized and hung themselves....geesh...

" where there are at least 60% of the world in poverty"

Define poverty globally and tell me why it is so bad? Because in your next thread, I'm certain that you will be espousing the evils of wealth, in typical hypocritical Libtard fashion...Believe it or not, a human can be happy and content in a hut, living a hunting/gathering life style without access to WebDip. Who the fuck are you to say some "poor" human in another country without access to your evil technology is worse off than you. Judgmental asshole so unless they look, talk and act like you they are worse humans, is that it? Fuck you.

Putin has a point about things slowing down, though i don't think it is fair to saywe're coasting - new inovations are harder, i think we're actually doing more innovation it just has a smaller impact.

But more computing power, more human computation, we're definitely getting better at some of the things needed to creatw further advances.

SY has a tiny point about humans imperialism and use of advanced tech to impose on others, but i see another trend in basic science of collaboration, globally shared info because nobody can do the same amount of work if they work alone. We will do whatever is most efficient i'm sure.

Ever the optomist, i think we'll solve every problem we come across, and we will continue to push moral boundaries - look at slavery turning into wage slavery, look at feminism helping half the population see equality (or something closer to it) look at technology equalling the playing field in a huge number of areas - access to information (se: wikipedia) means virtually everyone can now learn almost anything: this is signifigant.

"What happened to making things here?"

Paying a living wage is too fucking expensive and prices the goods out of the range of the typical consumer. That's why Walmart, once the bastion of "made in America" has agreements with Chinese manufacturers now as they can get reasonably priced goods and seel them cheaper than their competitors.

Until the federal government steps in and puts trade limitations on our imports from cheap labor countries like China, manufacturing in the US will continue to be exported and products imported.

So SY, why is transhumanism a 'shit ideology'? And what does it mean to your mind? (if SY is still here...)

"Paying a living wage is too fucking expensive and prices the goods out of the range of the typical consumer. That's why Walmart, once the bastion of "made in America" has agreements with Chinese manufacturers now as they can get reasonably priced goods and seel them cheaper than their competitors.

Until the federal government steps in and puts trade limitations on our imports from cheap labor countries like China, manufacturing in the US will continue to be exported and products imported."

AMEN, Draugnar. AMEN.

What is wrong with distributing wealth to those countries with a lower cost of living? That is the trickle down theory, right? The reason global capitalism is good. I mean if you want a command economy where the federal government decides what the US should produce, join the frakking communist party!

Another reason that products are so expensive to produce in the US is the Union movement. And no, I don't want to have a bogus argument about "the middle class" being built by unions, blah blah blah. It isn't *just* wages/benefits that are ridiculously out of sorts with the actual skill set - but Unions also have this nasty habit of protecting head count...ie. manufacturer *could* bring in a robot to do a job faster, cheaper, high er quality....but union threatens strikes, gets it written in to contract that head count will be preserved, etc....thus, instead of keeping fewer jobs (which would now include robot maintenance) Unions say "all or nothing" and lost jobs overseas.

As for wages....I used to work "Industrial" staffing before I moved to Engineering staffing. Perfect example...I could place $9/hr low-skilled hi-lo drivers at non-union shops...young guys starting careers, etc who with ambition would move up in the world. My next door neighbor, the Ford/UAW union hi-lo driver is pulling down total compensation of $75K (wage + bennies, etc) for the exact same job.

So who is getting screwed? I know knee jerk libs will say the $9/hr guy is getting screwed. Wrong...he's getting what he's worth,because if he leaves, there are 3 guys in line behind him. Who's getting screwed is Ford...but they don't care, becuase they pass the cost off to you in the price of the vehicle.

orath - global trickle down...it was what NAFTA was all about. It will work over time, as you lift up the economies of the nations receiving our jobs..it's just going to take mulitple generations before they become strong enough economies to start becoming importers and join the world as anything but a manufacturing base. But it isn't hard to find those nations that used to only be where goods were produced, and now look at them as economic power houses. Hong Kong (I know, not a nation), South Korea are two examples.

@krellin, i entirely agree, i'm not being sarcastic or ironic for a change (well except maybe equating protectionism with communism) there are definitely downsides to globalization, but that doesn't mean i don't appreciate there are also upsides.

Globalization is where trade protectionism comes into play. The government shouldn't say what can and can't be made here, but they should protect local businesses by making the cost of admission into the US market high enoughf or local businesses to compete. They can do that with tariffs or by setting import quotas on products.

But the problem is when a product is the exclusive domain of one company (can anyone say iPhone, iPad, or iPod). If it is a US company, they don't want to send that company's world HQ north or south of the two borders and high tariffs would do that. And because of dedmand and no competitors, they can't justify import quotas as all it does is make less of the product available. So what can they do?

There are many smart phone and tablets other than i-*. It would be highly suspect if this were otherwise.

Sales tax in the location of sales means revenue is generated regardless of where the HQ is. Or is that merely taxing your own population. There is no reason to assume corporate profits shouldn't be taxed in the state they are made rather than in the state the corporate HQ is registered... Just fix our tax laws.

You know how Apple gets around import quotas: IPad-a, iPad-b, iPad-c, iPad-d, iPad-e...

Now you have 16 slightly different versions of the same device, but they are imported under the limit. For every law, there are 10 lawyers telling you how to skirt it.

Tarrifs are not all they're cracked up to be, either. You put a tarrif on product x, and it get's passed on to the consumer - YOU pay the tarrif. Not only that, but the country whom is now suffering lower sales because of your tarrif reacts in kind, and now our already low-exports of product y x are even lower.

Sp the Government gets more tax revenue; you, the consumer, get lower access to more expensive products, and we have fewer jobs at home producing export product y

What you need is for the UAW to extend it's reach to the foreign markets, and start unionizing the global labor markets to enforce fair working conditions, thus increasing the cost of production overseas and soothing poor Synapses bleeding heart.

@krel that would require global solidarity, which isn't really there.

"Tarrifs are not all they're cracked up to be, either. You put a tarrif on product x, and it get's passed on to the consumer - YOU pay the tarrif"

But the consumer is less licely to buy the product if it costs more. Tariffs work because the consumer gets more choice when the product is *sold* on equal footing. Yes, the company passes it on to the consumer. But if company A passes on a 25% tariff on a product that only costs 15% less than company B's locally made product, company B can now compete. The consumer gets more choice. And company A is forced to product an equal quality and feature laden product for the money.

@ora - Remember, the US isn't the same type government as the UK. Our form of government gives much more autonomy to the States than the federal government. There has never been a national sales tax and, despite it probably being a good way to do things, there probably never will be one.

@Draug - I know the consumer is less likely to buy the product - so less product is sold, less is produced, prices get raised (in addition to the tarrif)...all in all, tarrif fuck the consumer.

You idea is you put a tarrif on and it forces the product to be produced locally...except it probably won't be, or if it is, you'll be paying $25 for your tee-shirts instead of $10 or whatever it will be. there is a reason production moved over-seas.

So then you eliminate foreign competition with tarrifs and have only locally produced product ... so protected market...means higher costs *and* lower quality...

Remember GM/Ford/Chrysler back when they had no foreign competition? Suck ass pieces of junk.

Let's cut to the chase:

1. Manufacturing is not dead in the US. - that is simply a lie, so we don't' need to get manufacturing back from China or wherever.
2. If you want to grow the economy, innovate new products, engineer stuff that others can produce for you, and sell it to the world

@Krellion - "I know the consumer is less likely to buy the product - so less product is sold, less is produced, prices get raised (in addition to the tarrif)...all in all, tarrif fuck the consumer"

No, only less of that manufacturer's product. More competing products get sold and the consumer has more choice. Tariffs work but *only* when there is a competing nationally made product. They don't hurt the consumer in that regard.

"You idea is you put a tarrif on and it forces the product to be produced locally...except it probably won't be"

No, that isn't my idea. I was very clear that tariffs are only for products that *already have* nationally made competitors, like automobiles. Tariffs are about leveling the playing field for *existing* businesses within our borders, not trying to create new business opportunities.

And one final note... I said it is to level the playing field, not give the home team the advantage. Both sides will be competing equally for the hard earned cash of the consumer. You are correct that if you tariff the imports so high they can't compete, then internally produced goods suffer in quality. Both must be at approximately the same rpice so that both internal and external goods are competing on quality and features, not on price alone.

Tariffs are a barrier to free trade and make everyone worse off than they could be.

And the US doesn't believe in free trade. They have always been about fair trade. Free trade isn't necessarily fair trade. Countries and companies should be more worried abotu establishing a competitve advantage through producing the best of a given good and the most affordable price so that the consumer has no reason to go elsewhere. But when foreign owend companies are actually government owned and trying to get a leg up, the government of that company/country will prop thenm up in advance and dump product on the foreign market to bankrupt any competition. IT's free trade, but it most definitely isn't fair trade. That is why we have to practice trade protectionism of some form. I'm a fan of quotas more than anything. And those little games we talked about before are easily handled by setting the quote on the generic product like, say, smartphone. Then it doens't matter how many different models of iPhone (4, 5, 5s, 5c, whatever), Apple's Chinese manufacturewrs would only be allowed to import so many of them collectively, forcing apple to start manufacturing some of them over here to keep up with demand.

Whaaaa? The US doesn't believe in free trade? We're the reason the WTO exists. We're begging for free trade pacts with the EU and Asian countries literally right now.

You have no idea what you're talking about if you say the US doesn't believe in free trade. Apart from agriculture, or course...

The US only believes in free trade if it is fair trade. We embargo Cuban goods for fuck sake. How is that *free trade*? The IS may give lip service to the concept but, in practice, we don't offer free trade to the world and we see just how much NAFTA has fucked us over. Hell, Hillary ran on a "repeal NAFTA" platform, you know the legislation her husband passed...